While we patiently wait for services like Apple Pay to proliferate and eventually eliminate the need for plastic credit and debit cards, a new type of solution has emerged. Dubbed “smart cards,” these devices are capable of storing multiple credit, debit and membership cards in a single swipeable device, theoretically allowing users to empty out their wallets and just carry a single payment card.

Just over a week ago, I began testing Coin. Billed as a smart card that can replace all of the credit cards and debit cards currently in your wallet, Coin and devices like it stand to bridge the gap between traditional credit cards and a future where paper money and plastic money are things of the past, replaced by device-based payment systems like Apple Pay.

That future is still decades away, unfortunately. In the meantime, device like Coin stand to simplify and improve the retail experience for users.

Coin is not the future. This is important to make clear right off the bat. The future of payments will look much more like Apple Pay than it does Coin. In the digital age, there is no reason we should still have to carry paper money or plastic credit cards in the United States. We do it because we have to; the government is behind the times and banks are behind the times.

Paper money and plastic credit cards will not exist in the future. Sadly, it maybe be decades before that future is truly realized.

In the meantime, smartphone and wearable-based payment solutions like Apple Pay are in their infancy in America. They’re wonderful and secure options at the small number of retailers where they are accepted, but they cannot replace any of the credit cards in your wallet, let alone all of them. Good luck buying dinner at a restaurant or getting cash from an ATM with Apple Pay.

While Apple is finally bringing its contactless payments solution to the iPhone, other companies are still sticking with regular debit and credit cards, trying to reinvent these pieces of plastic that are widely used for daily purchases around the world. After Coin and Plastc, two companies that think they have figured out the next big thing for credit cards, Final also wants to reinvent the credit card. But the company has a different kind of smart credit card concept compared to Coin and Plastc, and it focuses on the user’s security. More →

Coin, the new mobile payment platform that may actually have a chance at taking off, has already blown through its initial crowdfunding goal by raising $50,000 in under 40 minutes. Because of this success, the company says that it’s making more Coin cards available for preorder and that it’s added new features to Coin including “an alarm that remembers how many times your Coin is being swiped” and that “will alert you via the app if it is being swiped fraudulently when out of your hands.” More →

Companies are trying as hard as they can to convince us that smartphone-based payment systems are the future, but we have seen little thus far to convince us that this new technology will break out anytime soon. Tap-to-pay smartphone solutions require retailers to update their point of sale (POS) terminals, and mobile payment solutions providers are having trouble coming up with a solid system that works across platforms. On top of everything else, people haven’t yet shown that they’re comfortable replacing standard credit cards with a smartphone-based solution. But what if there were a middle ground? What if an innovative solution came along that required no new POS equipment and could instantly be used anywhere credit cards are accepted? What if that solution looked as familiar as a credit card but still let users empty their wallets of all current credit cards, debit cards, gift cards and membership cards? One San Francisco-based startup is now looking to make this seemingly impossible middle ground a reality. More →